of Lollies, Love, Labels, Laughter, Lessons, Life, and being the Lulu…

Multi-tasker, Multi-roles

Besides being a teacher, a disciplinarian (which I’m pretty much lame at), head teacher advisor of Red Crescent, newly-appointed secretary of English Department, SPBT teacher, and teacher advisor of Computer and Chess Club… I’ve taken up a lot of other roles:

My students have branded me as the

1. Mobile dictionary

2. Google translate

3. Discovery channel

4. Raja lawak (apparently they are very amused and often look forward to my dramatic demonstrations all the time @_@ )

5. etc

.
Nowadays, I’ve taken a very different role. I have students coming to me for consultation, about what they should do after SPM.

Yup, I have become the counselor. More precisely, the career and ‘further studies’ consultant.

For most of them, their biggest dream is to be able to enter a university – be it a polytechnic or community college.They knew they are not as same par as the competition out there. But they still hold on to that dream of theirs. Then again, they knew their parents won’t be able to support them as they have a lot of siblings; and they do come from families with lower means.

So they sought me for advice.

I had to be very careful when I try to be the ‘Aunt Sally’. Different cases, I suggested different possibilities and alternatives. I felt I was given this huge burden and responsibilities, and I do not want to end up as ‘that teacher who ruined someone’s life with her smart-ass advice’. So I have to constantly remind them that I could only give them a second opinion and that they should always discuss with their families and get blessings before making any decisions.

Even so, it warms my heart that these kids are starting to realise that there is a whole world out there, worthy to be explored. They are no longer the kids who are contented to work in the supermarket in Gua Musang or a packaging factory. They want to see the world.

I have been asking them the question, “what do you think you are good at?”

They answered immediately, “nothing.”

But I won’t take that for an answer. So I continued to probe. And then I started to get answers like, “saya pandai buat kek.”, “teacher saya pandai baiki vespa”, “pandai cari duit!”

And I told them, “See, I can’t bake a cake to save my life, I surely can’t repair a vehicle, and I am poor because I am a hopeless business person. So you are cleverer than me in other areas. Don’t look down on those skills. Work on them.”